Ouch! Latest Qualcomm sueball comes from ... its own shareholders

Legal flingball fingers Snapdragon 810 debacle

Qualcomm's own shareholders have added to the barrage of lawsuits being fired at the mobile chip giant.

The latest salvo puts the company's management in the crosshairs - blaming it for hardball tactics which subsequently attracted antitrust suits.

In January, the FTC filed a complaint (pdf) alleging that Qualcomm had abused its dominance of the baseband processor market. Three days later, Apple separately sued over licensing terms, opening up a new front. Qualcomm retaliated, suing Apple's supply chain last week. The five recipients - including Foxconn, Compal, and Wistron - between them make most of the world's smartphones.

The shareholder suit not only targets company strategy and execution from 2013 to the present day under the Securities Exchange Act, but the troubled story of the Snapdragon 810, designed to the flagship for 2015. It alleges that Qualcomm cut corners and claimed it added 64bit mode in a hurry. This, the shareholders allege, resulted in a processor that doubled up as a room heater.